Volunteers Needed For Amarillo Kolbe Prison Retreat

June 15, 2023

Amarillo—The third Kolbe Prison Retreat of 2023 will take place Thursday, Aug. 17 to Saturday, Aug. 19 at the William P. Clements Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Amarillo, and volunteers are needed, according to Deacon Andy Gonzalez, diocesan Prison Ministry Coordinator.

Deacon Gonzalez is seeking the support of 30 men from the Knights of Columbus, the ACTS Community and the Cursillo Movement to make the retreat at the Pampa Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice possible.

“We are asking for volunteers for these retreats and any and all assistance to this ministry will be greatly appreciated,” he said.

Team formation meetings for this retreat take place Tuesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30 in the parlor at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, 4100 South Coulter, Amarillo. Subsequent meetings will take place on Tuesday evenings until the beginning of the retreat.

The final scheduled Kolbe Prison Retreat this year is set for Thursday, Nov. 9 through Saturday, Nov. 11 at the T.L. Roach Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Childress (date subject to change without notice).

The Kolbe Retreats are named after St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Patron Saint of Prisoners, according to Deacon Gonzalez. St. Maximilian was a Polish Conventual Franciscan Friar who was sent to Auschwitz during World War II in 1941. When Nazi guards selected ten people to be put into an underground bunker to be starved to death in punishment for a prisoner escaping in July 1941, Father Kolbe volunteered to die in place of one of the men selected, Franciszek Gajowniczek. Father Kolbe died Aug. 14, 1941 after a lethal injection of carbolic acid. He was canonized as a Saint by Pope (now Saint) John Paul II on Oct. 10, 1982.

For more details or to volunteer to be a team member on a Kolbe Retreat, please call Deacon Gonzalez at 806-463-0262 or Deacon Darryl Dixon at 806-290-8842. The Kolbe Prison Ministry is a 501(c)(3) organization and all donations are charitable donations for tax purposes.